Purr Usual are back on the groove train with their upcoming EP, ‘Forever and a Day’
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10.08.2021

Purr Usual are back on the groove train with their upcoming EP, ‘Forever and a Day’

Words by Lexi Herbert

What do you get when you cross five lockdowns, three housemates, two brothers and a homemade garage recording studio? You get Melbourne-foursome Purr Usual’s new EP, Forever and a Day.

Purr Usual have been all quiet on the COVID front, looking instead to play around with sounds and production skills on their side hustle, Ghost Bumps (of ‘Dish Pig’ fame). Now, Gabe Strachan, Tim Palstra, Edan Strachan and Max Karklins are back and stronger than ever, ready to bring about some more funky pop.

This time, however, frontman Gabe Strachan has acquired a lot of new production gear and ebbed ever so slightly toward the electronica side of things. When told that the new single ‘Ready to Fly’ sounds similar in its intro to Kraftwerk, Strachan had a good laugh.

“I’ve been experimenting, that’s for sure,” he says. “Kraftwerk, though, damn. That’s great, can’t complain about that.”

Though a lot of the songs had already been written and played live pre-COVID, Strachan found that he had a lot more time on his hands during each lockdown, and forced himself into the band’s homemade recording studio where he recorded as much as he could.

“Each of the songs has gone through varying stages, and even though we’ve played iterations of them in tha past, I always wanted to make sure that throughout this process I was getting the opinions of the boys,” he says.

His choice to lock himself in the studio and push his limits, play around with new sounds and create various versions of each track was fully supported by his bandmates.

“It was great to be able to see an idea from start to finish.”

The fresh ideas don’t end with the music, however. There’s a mass of work going on off-field, including guitarist Tim Palstra and Hegel’s Bagels co-founder, James Gledhill, churning out new designs for merch and cover art, including the artwork for the new single, ‘Ready to Fly’. 

Additionally, and possibly most impressively, Palstra has been creating a playable video game to support the EP. Yes, a literal video game.

Is Palstra a certified game creator? No. Is he a coder/software designer? Also no. Is the game playable and incredibly entertaining? Absolutely. 

“It’s a hub of activity at the moment, and it’s exciting. Maybe the most exciting time for us since COVID set in for 2021,” says Strachan.

Forever and a Day will feature six new releases, “Four and a half of which are already done,” according to Strachan.

The whole EP will be produced by the Purr Usual squad, but the mixing and mastering will be completed by the Landed Productions team, Michael Belsar (also of Melbourne band Hunting Grounds) and Stefan Johnson. 

Be sure to keep an eye out on the Hegel’s Bagel website and the Purr Usual Instagram for the EP drop dates, as well as the link to Forever and a Day’s custom-built game. Highest score gets a shout out at the first gig back, hey, Purr dudes?

Keep up with Purr Usual here